Daniel Ricciardo had a difficult start to the 2024 season as he was overtaken by teammate Yuki Tsunoda while trying to get comfortable behind the wheel of the VCARB01.
The Australian’s difficulties ruined his chances of being considered for a Red Bull seat in 2025, but in the final rounds has been able to regain competitiveness.
In Miami, Ricciardo qualified and finished fourth in Saturday’s sprint race and scored his first points of the year, thanks in part to a strong defense against cars that were clearly faster than his throughout the 19 laps that the race lasted. session.
The team manager, Laurent Mekiessaid that performance did not come out of nowhere, as Ricciardo had been improving in recent races without getting a result to show for it.
“I’m sure it was a big weight [que se quitó de encima] because the USA is almost his second race at home,” Mekies told Motorsport.com.
“He did it with style, with incredible defense against Carlos Sainz and Oscar Piastri. It was a fantastic moment for him,” he explained.
Daniel Ricciardo, RB F1 Team VCARB 01
Photo: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
“To be fair, we had seen signs of improvement before, but it was very difficult to explain it to the world. “Saudi Arabia was better than Bahrain, Australia was better than Arabia, Japan was better than Australia and China was better than Japan.”
“A lot of small steps have been coming and we think there are more steps we can do in the next few races to help the car suit it better,” he added.
When asked If there was a definitive answer as to why you had problemsMekies said: “Let’s just say we’ve identified things that he wasn’t happy with and had taken quite a bit of speed out of him. We’ve tried to tick all the boxes to be able to remove those limitations and there are a few more that we’d like to see ticked in the coming weekends. “.
“It was always planned to introduce a new chassis before the sixth race. It was a good way for Daniel to feel more comfortable, and he did better immediately in China and Miami.”
“It is a great value for a team to be able to understand and analyze what is happening with the drivers and is not always visible in the data. We are still trying to understand what was wrong, but it is a work in progress,” said the RB .
Daniel Ricciardo, RB F1 Team VCARB 01, Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-24, Oscar Piastri, McLaren MCL38
Photography by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
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